A Synergistic Anti-Diabetic Effect by Ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg3 through Adipogenic and Insulin Signaling Pathways in 3T3-L1 Cells

Although ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg3 have been identified as the significant ginsenosides found in red ginseng that confer anti-diabetic actions, it is unclear whether insulin-sensitizing effects are mediated by the individual compounds or by their combination. To determine the effect of ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg3 on adipocyte differentiation, 3T3-L1 preadipocytes were induced to differentiate the standard hormonal inducers in the absence or presence of ginsenosides Rb1 or Rg3. Additionally, we determined the effects of Rb1, Rg3, or their combination on the expression of genes related to adipocyte differentiation, adipogenic transcription factors, and the insulin signaling pathway in 3T3-L1 cells using semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Rb1 significantly increased the expression of CEBP alpha, PPAR gamma, and aP2 mRNAs. However, Rg3 exerted its maximal stimulatory effect on these genes at 1 mu M concentration, while a high concentration (50 mu M) showed inhibitory effects. Similarly, treatment with Rb1 and Rg3 (1 mu M) increased the expression of IRS-1, Akt, PI3K, GLUT4, and adiponectin. Importantly, co-treatment of Rb1 and Rg3 (9:1) induced the maximal expression levels of these mRNAs. Our data indicate that the anti-diabetic activity of red ginseng is, in part, mediated by synergistic actions of Rb1 and Rg3, further supporting the significance of minor Rg3

Antinociceptive and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Ethanolic Extracts of Glycine max (L.) Merr and Rhynchosia nulubilis Seeds

The aim of this study was to assess the in vivo potential of ethanolic extracts of Glycine max (L.) Merr. (SoRiTae) and Rhynchosia nulubilis (Yak-Kong) seeds as natural anti-nociceptive and anti-inflammatory agents. To assess the anti-nociceptive and anti-inflammatory potential, the ethanolic extracts of SoRiTae and Yak-Kong seeds were tested in arachidonic acid-induced ear edema, carrageenan induced paw edema, formalin-induced licking time, acetic acid induced writhing and hot plate-induced thermal stimulation in mice. The administration of ethanolic extracts of SoRiTae and Yak-Kong seeds evoked a significant effect of anti-nociceptive and anti-inflammatory activities as compared to standards aminopyrine and indomethacin. The ear edema, paw edema, paw licking time, pain and writhes in mice were significantly reduced (p < 0.05) as compared to the control. The results obtained in this study indicate that both SoRiTae and Yak-Kong soybeans possesses potential anti-nociceptive and anti-inflammatory activities

PIP-EL: A New Ensemble Learning Method for Improved Proinflammatory Peptide Predictions

Proinflammatory cytokines have the capacity to increase inflammatory reaction and play a central role in first line of defence against invading pathogens. Proinflammatory inducing peptides (PIPs) have been used as an antineoplastic agent, an antibacterial agent and a vaccine in immunization therapies. Due to the advancement in sequence technologies that resulted an avalanche of protein sequence data. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an automated computational method to enable fast and accurate identification of novel PIPs within the vast number of candidate proteins and peptides. To address this, we proposed a new predictor, PIP-EL, for predicting PIPs using the strategy of ensemble learning (EL). Our benchmarking dataset is imbalanced. Thus, we applied a random under-sampling technique to generate 10 balanced models for each composition. Technically, PIP-EL is the fusion of 50 independent random forest (RF) models, where each of the five different compositions, including amino acid, dipeptide, composition–transition–distribution, physicochemical properties, and amino acid index contains 10 RF models. PIP-EL achieves the Matthews’ correlation coefficient (MCC) of 0.435 in a 5-fold cross-validation test, which is ~2–5% higher than that of the individual classifiers and hybrid feature-based classifier. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of PIP-EL on the independent dataset, showing that our method outperforms the existing method and two different machine learning methods developed in this study, with an MCC of 0.454. These results indicate that PIP-EL will be a useful tool for predicting PIPs and for researchers working in the field of peptide therapeutics and immunotherapy. The user-friendly web server, PIP-EL, is freely accessible.

The Antioxidant Activity and Their Major Antioxidant Compounds from Acanthopanax senticosus and A. koreanum

The antioxidant activity and chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid contents were investigated from different parts of Acanthopanax senticosus and A. koreanum. Antioxidant activity was assessed by various in vitro assays such as DPPH, ABTS, FRAP, reducing power assays and ORAC, and the chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid were validated by HPLC chromatography. Among the various extracts, the fruit extracts of A. senticosus and A. koreanum exhibited strongest antioxidant activities including ABTS, FRAP, reducing power and ORAC, however, strongest DPPH radical scavenging activity was observed from the leaf extract of A. senticosus. In addition, the antioxidant activities of various extracts were correlated with total phenolic and proanthocyanidin contents. The major phenolic contents from various parts of these plants observed that leaf extract of A. senticosus expressed higher levels of chlorogenic acid (14.86 mg/dry weigh g) and caffeic acid (3.09 mg/dry weigh g) than other parts. Therefore, these results suggest that the leaf of A. senticosus may be an excellent natural source for functional foods and pharmaceutical agents, and the validated method was useful for the quality control of A. senticosus

Monitoring the formation of cholesterol oxidation products in model systems using response surface methodology

BACKGROUND: Cholesterol oxidation products (COPs) are produced during thermal processing of animal origin foods and are considered to have negative health impacts. The model systems are helpful to understand the impact of various factors on oxidation changes in foods during cooking process. METHODS: The study presented herein investigates the effects of pH, presence of unsaturated fatty acids, and heat on the formation of cholesterol oxidation products (COPs). Two model systems were designed to investigate the formation of cholesterol oxidation products in different lipid environments. The cholesterol oxides produced were quantified using gas chromatography. RESULTS: The level of cholesterol oxidation products decreased significantly at higher pH (above 5.8) and shorter heating time (3 h). The presence of unsaturated fatty acids (linoleic and oleic acids) significantly increased the amount of COPs under low-temperature heating conditions (100 °C and 1 h) but did not affect the production of COPs at higher temperature (150 °C). Increasing the temperature to 200 °C significantly increased the amount of COPs during the first hour of heating and this amount decreased upon further heating. The most frequently observed COPs in samples were α-epoxide, 20α-hydroxycholesterol, and 25-hydroxycholesterol. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, pH below 5.8, presence of unsaturated fatty acid, and high cooking temperature (>150 °C) leads to increased production of cholesterol oxidation products

Effect of Calcinated Oyster Shell Powder on Growth, Yield, Spawn Run, and Primordial Formation of King Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus Eryngii)

This study was conducted to evaluate the calcium (Ca) absorption efficacy of king oyster mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii) grown on sawdust medium supplemented with Ca-sources, including oyster shell powder, and to determine the efficacy of oyster shell powder as a calcium supplement on growth, yield, spawn run and primordial formation of P. eryngii. Optimum calcination of oyster shell powder was achieved at the temperature of 620.56 degrees C. A 1% supplementation of oyster shell powder in sawdust medium did not suppress the mycelial growth of P. eryngii. Also the supplementation of 2% calcinated oyster shell powder to sawdust medium potentially increased the calcium content up to a level of 315.7 +/- 15.7 mg/100 g in the fruiting body of P. eryngii, without extension of duration of spawn run and the retardation of the days to primordial formation. These results suggest that the shellfish by-products, including oyster shell powder, can be utilized to develop calcium enriched king oyster mushrooms.open2

Prevalence of Salmonella in Slaughter Pigs in South Korea

A total of 177(11.9 %) Salmonella was isolated from 1,483 slaughtered pig samples (784 lymph nodes and 699 caecal contents) in Korea. One hundred forty (17.9 %) and 37 (5.3 %) Salmonella were isolated from lymph nodes and caecal contents, respectively. The major serotypes were as follows; S. Typhimurium (28.2 %), S. Derby (17.5 %), S. Schwarzengrund (15.3 %) and S. Mbandaka (11.9 %). None of the 50 S. Typhimurium isolates were detected the ampicillin or chloramphenicol resistance genes in multipex PCR

Dependence of reaction center-type energy-dependent quenching on photosystem II antenna size

AbstractThe effects of photosystem II antenna size on reaction center-type energy-dependent quenching (qE) were examined in rice plants grown under two different light intensities using both wild type and qE-less (OsPsbS knockout) mutant plants. Reaction center-type qE was detected by measuring non-photochemical quenching at 50 μmol photons m−2 s−1 white light intensity. We observed that in low light-grown rice plants, reaction center-type qE was higher than in high light-grown plants, and the amount of reaction center-type qE did not depend on zeaxanthin accumulation. This was confirmed in Arabidopsis npq1–2 mutant plants that lack zeaxanthin due to a mutation in the violaxanthin de-epoxidase enzyme. Although the electron transport rate measured at a light intensity of 50 μmol photons m−2 s−1 was the same in high light- and low light-grown wild type and mutant plants lacking PsbS protein, the generation of energy-dependent quenching was completely impaired only in mutant plants. Analyses of the pigment content, Lhcb proteins and D1 protein of PSII showed that the antenna size was larger in low light-grown plants, and this correlated with the amount of reaction center-type qE. Our results mark the first time that the reaction center-type qE has been shown to depend on photosystem II antenna size and, although it depends on the existence of PsbS protein, the extent of reaction center-type qE does not correlate with the transcript levels of PsbS protein. The presence of reaction center-type energy-dependent quenching, in addition to antenna-type quenching, in higher plants for dissipation of excess light energy demonstrates the complexity and flexibility of the photosynthetic apparatus of higher plants to respond to different environmental conditions

Anti-photoaging effect of fermented agricultural by-products on ultraviolet B-irradiated hairless mouse skin

Processed products from agricultural produce generate a large number of agricultural by‑products that contain a number of functional substances. These are often discarded owing to the lack of suitable processing methods. The present study investigated the anti‑photoaging properties of fermented rice bran (FRB), soybean cake (FSB) and sesame seed cake (FSC) on ultraviolet B (UVB)‑irradiated hairless mouse skin. Results indicated that the oral administration of FRB, FSB and FSC effectively inhibited the UVB irradiation‑induced expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‑2, MMP‑9, MMP‑3 and MMP‑13. Reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction results also demonstrated that FRB, FSB and FSC significantly inhibited the UVB‑induced expression of the genes encoding tumor necrosis factor‑α, inducible nitric oxide synthase, interleukin (IL)‑6 and IL‑1β when compared with the UVB‑vehicle group (P\u3c0.05). Additionally, collagen degradation and mast cell infiltration were reduced in hairless mouse skin. Furthermore, UVB‑induced wrinkle formation was also significantly reduced in mouse skin compared with the UVB‑vehicle group (P\u3c0.05). These results reveal that fermented agricultural by‑products may serve as potential functional materials with anti‑photoaging activities